Meet the Georgia Farmers Who Love to Jam - Modern Farmer
Well, well, well, what do we have here? Yes, our good friends and Modern Farmer wrote about Farmers Jam! Big shout out to Emily, who also happens to be a subscriber (hi Emily!), for a wonderful job capturing our story – how we got started, how we’ve grown, and what our goals our for this enterprise. Please share this article with your family and friends.
Report: These are Georgia’s best new restaurants - Atlanta Journal Constitution
Bon Appetit recently released their 50 best new restaurants of 2022, and the AJC kindly curated three that were chosen in Georgia – Juniper Cafe and Lucian Books and Wine in the Atlanta area, and Common Thread in Savannah.
As farmers split from the GOP on climate change, they're getting billions to fight it - NPR
In my past work with farmers, there were negative returns on using the term climate change in rural areas. Many farmers just didn’t seem to bite. But now, after implementing practices like no-till planting and using cover crops, many are seeing benefits like using less water, improving the soil, and ultimately increasing their crops yields. That’s a language any farmer understands.
But now, the tide seems to be turning.
“A survey published in 2021 indicates that about 80% of farmers now believe climate change is occurring. That's a huge shift from just eight years ago, when a four-state survey indicated that most did not accept the concept of climate change nor believe its impact would reduce their crop yields.”
The rest of this article delves into an interesting phenomenon – despite seeing better yields as a result of Democratic led climate programs, farmers are increasingly voting for Republicans who usually vote against funding increases for those programs.
Farming for crops — and for solar power - Axios
For long-time readers of the newsletter, you know what I’m gonna say here. Food and energy production are intricately linked. It’s my belief that we should grow more food in more places for our health, environment, and security – and the same is true for energy. This article provides a great update into how initiatives to do both in the same place are going, both the positives and negatives.
Cities are planting trees. Why not make them fruit trees? - Grist
Ideologically – yes, absolutely, we’re already there. Why I LOVE this article is the data. Check this out:
"Dotting just 5 percent of open space with apple trees could help as much as 20 percent of Burlington’s food-insecure population reach its daily fruit requirements."
That’s a huge return on investment! And we can grow way more food than Burlington, Vermont here in the South.
Here’s another eye-popping figure:
"Roughly half of the bounty harvested from POP’s 67 partner sites — a few tons each year — is given to food pantries, sold at affordable prices at farmers markets, or simply picked by passersby looking for a snack. An estimated 6,532 Philadelphians tasted something grown in one of these orchards in 2019."
Lots of good stuff in this article. Really motivating for our work.