Trainee Spotlight: Allan Gandelman and Main Street Farms

by Amy Cheatle

March, 2013

Allan Gandelman and farming partner Bob Cat greet visitors to their Homer, NY farm wearing huge grins. Their project, Main Street Farms, located between Syracuse and Ithaca, is a small but successful study in greenhouse aquaponics. Made possible in part by the programs of the Groundswell Center, it’s recent success is making these gentlemen smile.

Inside the largest greenhouse on the one-acre property, life is flourishing. Hot rays of sun stream in and support stacked rows of green, red and purple edibles. Underneath the two tiers of plants, 9,000 tilapia fish peacefully live in tanks, their waste feeding the roots of the floating plants above. The operation runs year-round, providing wholesale and private customers with fish and greens weekly, even during the cold winter months. Lately, Gandelman says they can barely keep up the orders for their greens, and demand is only growing.

The inspiration for farming came gradually to Gandelman, who earned degrees in geography, anthropology and secondary education before teaching middle and high school social studies in upstate New York. A desire to grow food and to feed others called Gandelman from the classroom to the land, but not before he spent months traveling the globe and living in India. 

In 2010, after returning to the states, Allan completed the Groundswell New Farmer Training Program and the Sustainable Farming Certificate Program. He then founded Main Street Farms and began raising aquaponic greens. After a year of successfully growing and selling his organic produce, he incorporated aquaculture into his process and began farming antibiotic and hormone free tilapia. Bob joined the farm after completing the Sustainable Farming Certificate with The Groundswell Center as well.

Allan and Bob Cat credit Groundswell for guiding them towards a successful enterprise. Says Gandelman, “...with Groundswell, you’re getting the best farmers in the area to open up their farms, their business plans, their marketing strategies, growing practices and maybe most importantly, their lifestyles”. The business classes he took through Groundswell allowed them to bring “...spreadsheets filled with numbers” into funding meetings and for use in competitive grant applications. The program provided them entry into a rich network of food producers, and allowed them to become beacons for other individuals interested in sustainable aquaponics. Gandelman notes that visitors come to learn from their farm from all over the country, and that a good deal of his work week is spent educating others who are interested in the practice.

This year Main Street Farms was awarded an S.A.R.E Grant to research farming Black Soldier Fly larvae for use as fish food. The fly larvae would be raised on cafeteria waste from the local middle school adjacent to the farm property, allowing the school to reduce it’s total garbage footprint while providing the farm with much-needed compostables. If successful, the project would enable Allan to come closer to achieving a sustainable, closed loop system of aquaculture.  As part of the grant dictates sharing findings with other area farmers,  Gandelman again looks to the Groundswell network as a tool to connect with the region’s network of food producers.

The future of Main Street Farms will incorporate new growth. Allan and Bob will be building a new high-tunnel this spring on the property to raise tomatoes, eggplants and peppers. Gandelman has recently acquired an empty two acre lot in the city of Cortland which will be turned into a traditional urban farm which will utilize the latest is season extension practices.   And if he comes across a problem during his period of expansion, he can look to Groundswell for guidance, support, information, connections and encouragement.

To learn more about Main Street Farms visit their website atwww.mainstreetfarms.com or join them on Facebook and stay up-to-date on farm happenings.

We're now on Ithaca Community Radio!

Thanks to Groundswell Steering Committee Member Sharon Clarke, you can now tune into the Groundswell Local Food & Farming Radio Show on Ithaca Community Radio every third Friday of the month from 7 - 8 AM. The show is part of The Morning Show's Sustainability & Environment segment which will run from 7AM-8AM every Friday.

Our first show was March 15, and featured guest speaker Elizabeth Henderson of the Agricultural Justice Project, along with Todd McLane, Farm Manager at Westhaven Farm and Joanna Green, Director of Groundswell. We talked about Groundswell's history and mission and announced the 2013 Sustainable Farming Certificate Program beginning in May.

Ithaca Community Radio is now WRFI, 88.1, Radio for the People by the People, covering Ithaca and Watkins Glen.

Their new name reflects the fact that they are serving communities beyond Ithaca. They cover much of Tompkins and Schuyler Counties.

Again, Groundswell will be featured the third Friday of each month.  So, please tune in for the latest in Local Food and Farming.

The New American Farmer Education Project

Do you work with Immigrants, Refugees and/or First Generation Americans? Do they have an interest in farming? The New American Farmer Education Project can help refugees and other immigrants to get started in small-scale farming in the Southern Tier. We provide:

·         Farming Workshops taught by experienced local farmers

·         Support in Obtaining Land

·         Farm and Business Mentors

·         ESL & Translation Support

The New American Farmer Education Project is a collaborative effort of the Groundswell Center for Local Food & Farming and the Center for Agriculture Development and Entrepreneurshsip (CADE),along with the NYS Department of State’s Office for New Americans (ONA.) ONA was established recently in order to encourage New Americans to participate in New York’s civic and economic life, and to help legal permanent residents navigate the path to citizenship.

We need your help connecting with individuals or groups of new Americans in your area who might be interested in farming. We will be hosting an Information Session for service providers Friday April 12, 
2-4 PM in Ithaca, to share information about the opportunities and challenges for new Americans who want to get started in farming, and to explain the programs and services that we offer. Please RSVP by email to newamericans@groundswellcenter.org or call the Groundswell office at 607-319-5095.

Fence-Raising Parties at the Groundswell Incubator Farm!

Learn skills, make friends, have fun and support new farmers in our community!

Have you ever wanted to learn how to install a deer fence at your farm or homestead?  Better yet, would you like to get some hands-on fence-building experience with the guidance of an experienced farmer? Then join us!

Sunday March 24th, 10 AM - 4 PM

Fence-Raising Workshop & Work Party

AND/OR

Friday March 29, 11 AM - 3 PM   (NOTE THE NEW DATE!)

Fence-Raising Work Party
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Groundswell invites you to be part of the fence-raising action at the Groundswell  Incubator Farm.  We'll start on Sunday at 10 am with a one-hour workshop on the basics of designing and installing deer fencing.  Then we will all put our heads & hands together to create a lasting and beautiful fence, which will protect the new farm enterprises that will be launching in 2013 and beyond.

The workshop is free for those who can put in 3 hours or more of fence-building help, $30 for those who can't. Let us know if you plan to come by sending an email to info@groundswellcenter.org. Or just show up!

First, we will set about 50 black locust posts into their pre-dug holes.  Then we will roll out the woven wire along the fence line, and use everyone’s energy to hold it up to the posts while it gets stapled on and tightened. Altogether we'll be building about 1700 feet of 8 foot tall woven-wire fencing that will protect 4 acres of the Incubator Farm from deer and other critters who feast on farmers’ crops.

On Friday March 29th, we will finish building the fence with a group of high school students on a service trip from the MATCH charter schools in the Boston area.  These students have shown a high-level of dedication to their education, but rarely get a chance to spend time working outside or to experience new types of careers and lifestyles.  If you would like to work alongside these student-volunteers, we encourage you to come work with us on Monday, March 25th from 11 am to 3 pm.

We look forward to raising this fence with your help... Many hands make light work!

Trainee Spotlight: Steven Kidd, Carrie McCracken TRUCE Garden

A photo from the Carrie McCracken TRUCE Garden: "Marilyn Mosely explains the garden's child-affirming Memorial Sunflower Project to a new neighbor. Though one of our community's invisible structurally unemployed, she contributes many volunteer hours creating graphic work for the garden. Leaders are but stakes for the vines to begin their assent. The year is starting out  tough; but we are climbing higher." - Steven Kidd

By Milagros Gustafson-Hernandez

Steven Kidd is a gardener and community organizer in the food sovereignty movement in Harlem, NYC, and participated in Groundswell's Farm Business Planning Course in 2012. Here he shares his story and his hopes for the future.

Steven became interested in farming in the late 70’s, when he moved from Harlem to Kentucky. There he met his ex father-in-law, a Louisiana native who grew vegetables for his family on a plot of land. When his father-in-law passed away, his children- including Steven's ex-wife, disagreed about what to do with the land. His ex wife wanted to continue her father’s legacy of farming, but could not come up with the financing to purchase it.  The other sibling sold the land for about 1/8 of what it was worth. Steven feels this is a prime example of the epidemic of black land loss in our country: how predatory financiers scoop up black-owned land at a fraction of its worth, leaving generations of black families landless and with fewer assets over generations.

Shortly after this incident left him shaken, Steven became determined to get involved with gardening. Some friends of his were growing peppers in their backyards and were jarring pepper sauces in their homes, where they had set up processing kitchens. Steven began looking for spots to garden in the city. A sign on the fence of a nearby vacant lot said it was being taken care of as a community gardening project, but no one was really tending to the garden, and it was locked and inaccessible. So Steven had to travel quite a distance to another community to do his gardening. He felt the commute was unnecessary if there was a spot near his home that could be used.  He contacted the City and they eventually provided him with a key to the garden near his home.

This garden became the Carrie McCracken TRUCE Community Garden in Harlem, NY, a garden which "striv[es] for a green and welcoming space offering horticultural, educational, and cultural activities." This is the garden with which Steven spends most of his time now. Having a space to garden-- to grow plants as well as community -- was monumental. But Steven felt he needed more education and training.

Trainee spotlight: Devon Van Noble, Van Noble Farm

Devon and one of his pigs.

Groundswell trainee, staff member, and new farmer Devon Van Noble shares his personal journey from dreamer to farmer.

by Devon Van Noble

I feel like I've been becoming a farmer for my whole life, but it's only in the past few years that my journey really took off. Growing up in suburban community in Florida, where locally-sourced food is a rarity, I was only recently able to connect with farming on the ground. I read plenty about farming in school but really only started participating in it when I returned from Vermont, where I went to grad school, to Ithaca. In the spring of 2011 I started working for Groundswell, and soon after I took Groundswell's Sustainable Farming Certificate Program (SFCP). That season I also began harvesting with Early Morning Farm in Genoa, a medium-sized organic vegetable farm, on Fridays.

Coming into the SFCP, I felt like a “noob.” I was still totally unsure of what to do or how I could successfully enter farming. But by becoming immersed in the Ithaca agriculture scene, I quickly familiarized myself with Groundswell's Mentor Farmers, learned about other enterprises that existed locally, and gained a general sense of how farming was being done in this area. In the SFCP program, I learned the basics of crop production, planning, and management, and toyed around with the idea of raising livestock. But most importantly, it was one of my first steps towards becoming a farmer. I needed that intensive experience of seeing many different operations in a short period of time, and I also needed the time to go back to the same farm and get a deeper picture into the farm.  By seeing the enterprises at various stages of production you get a better sense of the businesses and what they require.

After I finished the SFCP program, I don’t think I was totally conscious of it, but I was definitely discouraged about my prospects of being a successful farmer.  The main reason for this is that I realized (and maybe had this inclination prior to the program) how much intelligence and what strong skill sets it takes to be a successful farmer.  And the reality really hit me that most farmers are forced to supplement with off-farm income, and only a select few really make their living off of it (and some of them are in substantial debt).  It is an incredible feat to manage your production, finances, labor, and markets, not to mention put it all together in a successful and coherent way. I felt really intimidated by all of that.

Since I had based my entire farming future upon the idea that I would be a crop farmer, and plants are not nearly as intuitive to me as animals, I felt that it would be many many years—and a major uphill battle of classes, reading, questions, and mistakes—before I would be competent enough to make a living from a farm enterprise. At that point, I had never even considered that I could really pull off being a livestock farmer. I'm not sure why—maybe because I didn't quite understand how livestock farmers successfully process and sell their product. Because this option never seemed open to me, I imagined that I'd remain in an off-farm job for the next few years with only occasional day trips to work on farms.

Just Harvest: Growing abundance in food deserts

by Zach Murray

Research has widely confirmed that millions of Americans live in communities that lack sufficient access to nutritious affordable foods. In many of these communities known as “food deserts” residents often travel well over a mile to access healthy foods most commonly available at grocery stores and supermarkets. Vulnerable low-income and minority households who have access to fewer supermarkets and vehicles than wealthier, predominantly white communities often populate food deserts. The USDA estimates that there are as many as 23.5 million residents of food deserts and 82.5% of this population resides in urban areas.

Physical distance to healthy foods adds pressure to vulnerable populations and is frequently linked to the preponderance of poor diet and in time to diabetes, obesity, and a number of diet related illnesses. The prevalence of small corner stores, convenience stores, and fast food, as well as the absence of supermarkets and other sources of fresh food, constitute a poor “food environment”. A poor food environment intensifies risk factors for obesity such as low-incomes, absence of reliable transportation, and lack of cooking knowledge. A number of medical professionals and scientists agree, a community’s food environment affects people’s eating habits, which are an essential contributor to obesity (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Public Health Service, Office of the Surgeon General, 2001). When low-income households and people of color lack access to stores that feature nutritious, affordable, high quality foods, it is more difficult to make healthier diet decisions that could lead to improved health outcomes.

Therefore, distance to supermarkets and the availability of public transportation are important determinants of a community’s access to healthy food. It is no coincidence that many residents living within food desert communities are also SNAP (Food Stamps) recipients. While research reveals that SNAP recipients face barriers in accessing vital social services, SNAP recipients also experience difficulties redeeming their benefits in their own communities. SNAP recipients live on average, 1.8 miles from a nearby supermarket and redeem their benefits 4.9 miles away from their home. When healthy food is out of reach, families whose budgets are already stretched thin must find extra money to pay for higher local prices or to cover extra transportation costs. Commonly, SNAP users attempt to stretch their dollars by shopping at distant large grocery stores, supermarkets, and supercenters where they experience cost savings.