Program Expansion in the time of COVID

Perhaps you have noticed, we are in the midst of a global pandemic. As a result, more of us are cooking, eating, gardening, and generally going stir crazy while in our homes. Lockdown and social distancing is a critical measure toward flattening the curve and promoting public health but the monotony of it all can grow tiresome and stressful for many people. We have noticed that many folks have, much to the pleasure of us and our planet, taken up memberships with local Community Supported Agriculture’s (CSA), started to garden, and (re)connected with home cooking. This phenomenon is not a localized turning of the tide, these trends are national.

Civil Eats reports that Community Supported Agriculture Shares are surging across the United States either in part or because of the global pandemic. This is good news for farmers, eaters, and the planet alike. This form of consumer behavior puts more money into the pockets of farmers by purchasing directly from them, it shortens supply chains and supports better farming practices at a time when most prevailing norms are in direct opposition to those ways of transacting and shopping.

Oftentimes, the only thing better than locally raised foods from your nearby farmer is growing the food yourself. People, so eager to start or amend their gardens have caused massive spikes in demand for compost and healthy soil. Organic farmers in Maine are even experiencing shortages in the market supply due to outsized consumer demand.

I, for one, have been cooking more than ever. With most of my favorite spots temporarily closed or open for take-out only, I have taken a lot of pleasure in making time to prepare meals for myself and loved ones. It’s been a great way to stay in touch with what’s in season, work on knives skills, and work through some of the dozens of cookbooks I have seemingly just been collecting over the years. Now more than ever, the kitchen feels like the heart and soul of my home.

It’s precisely for these reasons, among others, that food waste is also unfortunately surging. Perhaps because food waste is that much more difficult to ignore when you’re confronted with it on such an intimate level, or perhaps because we are generating most of our waste in our home rather than outsourcing our waste as we do when we toss items into the landfill at work, restaurants, or when we are otherwise out and about.

Our response to this has been to expand. We have been using this pandemic to try and do some soul searching to better serve our community and our region. We have been heartened by the overwhelming support for our programs. Our oldest and most mature program, the Drop-Off plan now boasts north of 800 monthly active members! We are thrilled to announce that we now have not one, not two, but three new locations thanks to your feedback.

• Legacy Community Garden in the Detroit Shoreway neighborhood of Cleveland

• Fairview Park City Hall

• Lowes Greenhouse and Nursery in Chagrin Falls.

This brings the total number of Drop-Off locations in our network to eight with more in the works. Our goal is to ensure every community member in the county has reasonable access to any of these drop-off locations. In order to help us better understand where our next batch of drop-off locations should be, please complete this survey and share it with your friends!

photo by Roger Mastroianni

Next up, we have expanded the service area for our Pick-Up program. Our service area now spans as far west as Lakewood and as far east as Beachwood. See THIS map to learn if you’re in our service area. If this service is not yet in your community, completing the aforementioned survey will also help us get to you faster! This program, started earlier this year, is now 100 members strong and growing. If you or someone you know might want to join please reach out to us in the chat with any questions you might have, we are eager to help you through the process.

Beyond the Trail: “Leaving No Trace” at Home

I buckled my backpack together, sealing the camping gear inside. As I finished packing for my hiking trip, my eyes gazed over the “Leave no Trace” inscription on my burnt orange hiking backpack. Almost every hiker, or person who has spent some time in the outdoors has come across this ubiquitous rule of thumb for spending time in nature. The Seven Principles of Leave No Trace provide an easily understood framework of minimum impact practices for anyone visiting the outdoors. They include: plan ahead and prepare, travel and camp on durable surfaces, dispose of waste properly, leave what you find, minimize campfire impacts, respect wildlife, and be considerate of other people. 

The next Monday on my drive to work, I could not help but notice the amount of trash piled up on the sides of roads, into trees and other foliage, and debris scattered along the highway. Coming off of a weekend of being in an unblemished environment, I could not get the sight of this public garbage out of my head even hours after my commute. Later on that Monday in our office space, I looked up at the whiteboard where the Rust Belt Riders' values are written. In large, bold dark letters, they list: interconnection, discovery, integrity, fulfilling, equity, and regenerative. I lingered over the word “interconnection.” This struck a chord with me. Why should the philosophy of leaving no trace carried by outdoor enthusiasts not be integrated into our everyday lives at home in Cleveland?  The website states: “Although Leave No Trace has its roots in backcountry settings, the Principles have been adapted so that they can be applied anywhere — from remote wilderness areas, to local parks and even in your own backyard.”

Photo by Liam Nigro

In a lifestyle article by Leave No Trace, they write, “When working to take care of the natural world, it’s not about what you do when people are watching. It’s about what you choose to do when you’re on your own when you’re left to make those ethical decisions, big and small, on a daily basis.” Similarly to Leave No Trace, here at Rust Belt Riders, we believe that every person can make a difference through small individual actions.The same mentality can be carried into your own food waste at home. If an individual reduces their food scraps at home, it is great, but If 100 people reduce their food scraps at home, the effect is substantial. Now imagine the entire city of Cleveland, nearly 400,000 people reducing their food scraps. That would create serious social, environmental, and economic change. 

As a person who enjoys a plethora of outdoor sports, I recognize that it is my responsibility to preserve the environment that I spend so much time in by properly disposing of the trash I bring into these wild spaces. However, I also believe it is part of our duty to carry a Leave No Trace mindset into our everyday life. For instance, Cleveland Metroparks are one of the city’s proud public green spaces where anyone can hike, bike, fish, horseback ride, kayak, or just hang out for the day. In Cuyahoga County where the Metroparks inhabit, the population alone is 1.235 million people with each person on average creating 9.5 lbs of food waste per week. If all of those people took the simple action to reduce their food scraps, we would prevent 219,543,037 pounds of coal from being burned according to this EPA statistic.  If we recognize that our food waste issue is one that can be solved through individual efforts joining together, we can take monumental steps towards a more clean, healthy, and sustainable society. Being a steward to the Earth should go beyond the trail and into the actions we take each day to dispose of our food waste at home.

Written by Liam Nigro, a student at The Ohio State University and current intern with Rust Belt Riders.

Hey, Shaker! Podcast featuring us, Rust Belt Riders!

A few weeks ago we had the great fortune of chatting with the people of Hey, Shaker! Give this amazing podcast a listen and let us know your thoughts below!

3 Simple Tips to Reduce Your Household Food Waste

Here are three examples directly from the staff at Rust Belt Riders on how to be creative with the waste you produce. 

1. Save your Egg Shells!

   Over the past few weeks Zoe has been collecting the shells from eggs she has been cooking with. By collecting a quarts worth of eggshells she will be able to add calcium directly into the growing beds. “It took my roommate some getting used to, but after the adjustment period, we collected more than a quart of shells! I'm most looking forward to processing them in my food processor.” By grinding the eggshells with water in a food processor she both cleans the shells and creates a calcium additive that can be directly applied to the soil. 

2. Meal Planning around food that is about to go bad

   Aramay has been tapping into her familial and social networks to reduce the amount of waste that she sees. By keeping a keen eye towards the veggies in the crisper drawer of both her and her family’s homes, she has been able to stop food waste before it happens. One of her favorite dishes has been a combination of a salad that was about to wilt dressed with a “leftover stir-fry” that included half a can of beans her sister had left open, a small container of rice from a Chinese restaurant, a “droopy-tomato” and a perfectly cooked egg. Aramay shared, “If people really want to get serious about reducing their food waste they need to meal-plan around food that is about to expire.”   

3. Vegetable Soup Stock from Veggie Scraps

Though not a strict vegetarian himself, Michael does his due diligence to reduce food waste by saving the ends and peelings of his vegetables in his freezer for future vegetable stock. “The tupperware in my freezer is quite literally overflowing at the moment with scraps.” Rather than pitching those ends of chopped carrots, garlic peals and smashed garlic bits, save them for the next time you have the craving for a warm vegetable soup or a creamy risotto that calls for stock. It’s fun and totally worth the extra effort to give a go at making your own stock!

What We're Reading: “The Voyage of the Frog”

Title: The Voyage of the Frog

Author: Gary Paulsen

Survival seems to be a common theme these days. Author Gary Paulsen has made a career of entertaining and enlightening young people with stories that often revolve around the same theme. Did you read Hatchet in fifth grade?

The Voyage of the Frog is about a cherished uncle’s last trip out to sea. The sailboat’s “captain”, David, is a 14-year old nephew with the same passion and acumen for a fiberglass twenty-two footer who intended to fulfill his uncle’s last wish. All of his survival skills will be tested after a savage storm, a lack of resources including wind, and some seafaring company that doesn’t turn very quickly. Did I mention sharks and whales?

The young man I am sharing this book with is also fourteen. He is dealing with a different type of isolation, loss, and challenges. He and David do have some things in common. They share grit and a zest for living that are hard to find these days. My hope is that other young people will benefit from the adversity that has been thrust into their lives in varying degrees. Will the ones with fewer resources, who may truly be in survival mode, stay the course and navigate their way to success or will they be lost at sea? (Sorry, too easy).

The Voyage of the Frog will give readers of all ages a real sense of participation and plenty of excitement. It is a quick read that is well worth the time to be inspired to embrace the new normal and even thrive while pursuing a passion.

by: Tim Weber

What We're Reading: "Farmers of Forty Centuries"

There are those books you hear about for years that no one you know has ever actually read, but are generally accepted as classics of the genre. One of those in the world of organic agriculture is Franklin Hiram (FH) Kings’ Farmers of Forty Centuries. 

It’s referenced over and over in permaculture and composting literature as a classic of composting. Published in 1911 by Carrie Baker King, FH King’s widow, the book is an account of FH King’s travels in China, Korea, and Japan for nine months in 1905. I expected a torporous tome of in stilted archaic language with painfully detailed and slow descriptions of things.

I was totally wrong. Professor King’s prose is compelling, deeply admiring of the people and cultures he encountered, and the 423-page book includes 248 photographs of surprisingly excellent quality. King describes his personal adventures in China - getting lost at night on a Rick-sha without an interpreter, paying for a stay on houseboat lived on by a family of eight and exploring China’s incredibly extensive canals.

And waxes philosophical on the comparatively wasteful farming of the United States, while himself quoting Booker T. Washington:

Man is the most extravagant accelerator of waste the world has ever endured. His withering blight has fallen upon every living thing within his reach, himself not excepted; and his besom of destruction in the uncontrolled hands of a generation has swept into the sea soil fertility which only centuries of life could accumulate, and yet this fertility is the substratum of all that is living.

…

The Mongolian races, with a population now approaching 500 million, occupying and area little more than one-half that of the United States, tilling less than 800,000 square miles of land, and much of this during twenty, thirty, or perhaps forty centuries; unable to avail themselves of mineral fertilizers, could not survive and tolerate such waste. Compelled to solve the problem of avoiding such wastes, and exercising the faculty which is characteristic of the race, they “cast down their buckets where they were” as,

A ship lost at sea for many days suddenly sighted a friendly vessel. From the mast of the unfortunate vessel was seen a signal, “Water, water; we die of thirst!” The answer from the friendly vessel at once came back, “Cast down your bucket where you are.” A second time the signal “Water, water; Send us water!” ran up from the distressed vessel, and was answered, “Cast down your bucket where you are.” And a third and fourth signal for water was answered, “Cast down your bucket where you are.” The captain of the distressed vessel, at last heeding the injunction, cast down his bucket, and it came up full of fresh sparkling water from the mouth of the Amazon River. - Booker T. Washington

Composting Methods

 Of course, as a compost lover and maker, I’m fascinated by the methods described and ingredients used in compost making.

In various regions of China and Japan there were locally adapted methods of compost preparation. All of them seem extremely laborious, especially when considering that all of the materials were gathered and moved by hand, occasionally with the help of a beast of burden. 

The two main methods I’ve been able to understand so far, are not at all like the aerobic composting I’m accustomed to. In the photo above, we see compost pits, where material (including human manure) was allowed to ferment anaerobically, under water and the silt/sludge, would be scooped out of these pits, or canals, with long handled cloth ladles and carried in baskets to the fields.

Underwater fermentation is suggested in the modern offshoot of Korean Natural Farming called JADAM, and the dipping and use of canal/pond muck is used extensively in the legendary chinampas of Mexico, which themselves are the heritage of the Aztec empire, and still in cultivation.

Many modern compost texts and teachers eschew anaerobic fermentation out of hand, rejecting it as a disgusting, inefficient, bad for soil health, and attractive to flies. Yet King notes the remarkable cleanliness and lack of flies around farms in China:

We have adverted to the very small number of flies observed anywhere in the course of our travel, but its significance we did not realize until near the end of our stay. Indeed, for some reason, flies were more in evidence during the first two days on the steamship, out of Yokohama on our return trip to America, than at any time before on our journey. It is to be expected that the eternal vigilance which seizes every waste, once it has become such, putting it in places of usefulness, must contribute much toward the destruction of breeding places, and it may these nations have been mindful of the wholesomeness of their practice and that many phases of the evolution of their waste disposal system have been dictated by and held fast to through a clear conception of sanitary needs.

In some cases, the anaerobically fermented material would be pulled out of the compost pits and mixed with soil and made into blocks and turned regularly, further allowing fermentation and making available the nutrients in the compost materials. Why so much effort went into homogenizing and pulverizing the material is not clear to me, but was clearly important to these Chinese farmers.

The fullest description of how these compost piles were composed (that I’ve read yet, I’m on page 298 currently) follows:

The compost pit in front of where we sat was two−thirds filled. In it had been placed all of the manure and waste of the household and street, all stubble and waste roughage from the field, all ashes not to be applied directly and some of the soil stacked in the street. Sufficient water was added at intervals to keep the contents completely saturated and nearly submerged, the object being to control the character of fermentation taking place.

The capacity of these compost pits is determined by the amount of land served, and the period of composting is made as long as possible, the aim being to have the fiber of all organic material completely broken down, the result being a product of the consistency of mortar.

When it is near the time for applying the compost to the field, or of feeding it to the crop, the fermented product is removed in waterproof carrying baskets to the floor of the court, to the yard, such as seen in Fig. 126, or to thestreet, where it is spread to dry, to be mixed with fresh soil, more ashes, and repeatedly turned and stirred to bring about complete aeration and to hasten the processes of nitrification. During all of these treatments, whether in the compost pit or on the nitrification floor, the fermenting organic matter in contact with the soil is converting plant food elements into soluble plant food substances in the form of potassium, calcium and magnesium nitrates and soluble phosphates of one or another form, perhaps of the same bases and possibly others of organic type. If there is time and favorable temperature and moisture conditions for these fermentations to take place in the soil of the field before the crop will need it, the compost may be carried direct from the pit to the field and spread broadcast,to be plowed under. Otherwise the material is worked and reworked, with more water added if necessary, until it becomes a rich complete fertilizer, allowed to become dry and then finely pulverized, sometimes using stone rollers drawn over it by cattle, the donkey or by hand. The large numbers of stacks of compost seen in the fields between Tsingtao and Tsinan were of this type and thus laboriously prepared in the villages and then transported to the fields, stacked and plastered to be ready for use at next planting.

The other method similarly involves fermented canal or compost pit muck mixed with green plant material. Below is an image of a compost stack that was built layer by layer of cut clover covered with compost muck, and stamped on by foot, until it grew to this height, with F H King’s umbrella on the stack for reference. This is then let to ferment for about half a year before being applied to the fields.

Reflections

I’m struck by the incredible work put into preparing composts and fields described and am amazed at how these methods developed over time in a peasant-subsistence society. 

King was famous also for his text on agricultural physics, and his knowledge of soil chemistry - but an understanding of soil biology hadn’t happened yet. (That would wait for Annie France Harrar of Germany and Nikolai Aleksandrovich Krasil'nikov of Russia in the middle of the 20th century). And King’s view of agriculture was essentially extractive - that is, that plants pull nutrients out of soil and those nutrients must be replaced every year in order to maintain the health and fertility of the soil. 

In 1975, the now-famous natural farmer Masanobu Fukuoka reacted against this sort of traditional east Asian agriculture and extractive mindset in One-Straw Revolution. There he inveighs against the unnecessary labor of making all of these extensively prepared composts and natural fertilizers, and the view of nature in parts, rather than an indistinguishable whole.

That said, FH King’s work stands the test of time and is absolutely worth your time.

by: Nathan Rutz

Earth Day: 2020

It’s Earth Day, ya’ll! As the adage goes, we, of course, encourage you to make every day earth day.

We at Rust Belt Riders try to do just that; make it a little bit easier for people through their daily activities to positively contribute toward the well being of their planet and community. For the past five years we have been working with people just like you to bring the simple act of diverting food waste into your lives; at work, in your office, and in your own kitchen. In the world of start-ups and up-starts flowery jargon is thrown around about how this or that company is DISRUPTING (insert industry) but at our best, we are a Stone-Age Ag Tech company - we are allowing people to remember and reconnect with natural systems in a world full of gizmos and gadgets. This lockdown, this slowing down of things, gives new value to those kinds of activities, the kinds of practices that our company is based on. 

While a journey toward living in greater harmony with natural systems is one that we each take at our own pace, we wanted to share a few simple things to consider investing in this Earth Day. 

We also took it upon ourselves to jot down some of our own personal reflections on what Earth Day means to us:

What does Earth Day mean to you? How will this one be different from previous Earth Days and what goals do you have for next Earth Day?

The Local Foods Stimulus Bill - Too Small To Fail

Everyday, I find myself having conversations with friends, with clients, and with people who are trying to make sense of this mess that we find ourselves in. What this global pandemic is teaching people, I think, is that the things that are truly important are more clear now than they ever have been. Access to healthcare, healthy & delicious food, sharing time with loved ones, and spending time well are all themes that seem universally understood these days.

It comes as little surprise then to read reports of consumer spending shifting quite quickly and dramatically toward investments in self-sufficiency, in resilience, and in our local economy. In a pre-COVID world it seemed, to me at least, that we were aware of the problems that surrounded us but oftentimes convenience and a race to the bottom would win out in spite of our best intentions. It is my hope that emerging from this crisis, we can forge another path, one that is not just the new normal but is a world we can be truly jazzed and excited about. We have the opportunity to build the world we want to see, not just the one we are dealt. While we are undoubtedly in scary and uncertain times, I would argue that we need to invite in our passions and vision for the world we want in the driver seat right now and have that guide our outlook rather than the fear and polarization that might seem easier.

I am seeing signs that make me truly optimistic: “The Local Food Revolution Goes Online—for Now”, there are reported surges in Community Supported Agriculture shares, and a client/ partner of ours, Perfectly Imperfect, has seen their orders quadruple since COVID hit. Locally, others are making waves too. The Central Kitchen has launched an e-Commerce store that allows you to buy curated boxes of locally grown or produced food products from a dozen (and growing) purveyors. 

Central Kitchen, along with a number of our partners including Spice Kitchen and Bar, Fire Food and Drink, Market Garden Brewery, the Flying Fig, and Zhug even launched a mini-documentary series to give the public a glimpse into just how dramatic COVID has been on small businesses. It can be viewed as bleak but the resounding sentiment I hear is one of resilience, hope, and potential.

As many people across the country and here in Cleveland continue to try and make sense of how to proceed, I wanted to propose that perhaps the best way to move forward is with commitment, with purpose, and intentionality. There is an unbelievably cool project that has taken root called the Cleveland Stimulus Pledge, it invites those able to:

Take the pledge to give some or all of your stimulus check to groups in Northeast Ohio that need your support.  This month, many of us will receive a stimulus check from the federal government for $1,200. If you are still employed and do not need all of your check, or even if you earn too much to receive a check and wish to donate some of your income, consider donating to local groups that need support.

I invite you to take the pledge but I also invite you to consider not just to donate but to invest. Invest in the kind of future you want to see in this world. If you, like me, see the connection between the climate crisis and food insecurity, invest. Perhaps you, like me, realize that restaurants are too small to fail but so too are the small farmers whose income relies on those same small businesses currently struggling, invest. If you think that now is the time we put our dollars toward investing in the infrastructure that can make us more prepared and resilient in the face of uncertainty, invest.

We, for one, are accepting ‘early-enrollment’ in our residential services. We are not currently offering services but are inviting you and your neighbors to ‘pledge’ to use our services when the worst is behind us. Folks at the Central Kitchen are leveraging your dollars to save small farmers and producers, invest in a small farm that is offering a CSA, buy starter plants from and for your community garden, plant seeds yourself and grow a victory garden and then buy your soil locally. Our dollars go further when they stay local and we are all about to get dollars from Uncle Sam. Many of us need these funds to essentials like healthcare, childcare, rent, utilities, and food but for those of us more fortunate than others, invest. Your dollar will never go further, yield better returns, and mean more than it will now.

We are too small to fail but our impact is also too large to be overlooked.

What We're Reading: "Let My People Go Surfing"

Title: “Let My People Go Surfing”

Author: Yvon Chouinard

---

Reflection: If I am being totally honest, I have picked up this book a number of times over the past three years. This was the first time I worked through it cover-to-cover. These strange times and the uncertainty of life may have played a role in this but no matter the cause, I am eternally grateful for the inspiration and candor that Yvon Chouinard, founder of Patagonia, provides in his book “Let My People Go Surfing”. This book is equal parts; business management (a typically sleep-inducing topic),  personal memoir, and anl urgent call for environmental action. For those in business or contemplating starting one, I cannot recommend this text enough. It traces the story of the founding of Patagonia and their evolution over time to be not just a company for the sake of itself, but to be a company whose every decision and product are guided by four simple yet exceedingly bold core values and mission statement:

We’re in business to save our home planet.

1. Build the best product: Our criteria for the best product rests on function, repairability, and, foremost, durability. Among the most direct ways we can limit ecological impacts is with goods that last for generations or can be recycled so the materials in them remain in use. Making the best product matters for saving the planet. 

2. Cause no unnecessary harm: We know that our business activity—from lighting stores to dyeing shirts—is part of the problem. We work steadily to change our business practices and share what we’ve learned. But we recognize that this is not enough. We seek not only to do less harm, but more good. 

3. Use business to protect nature: The challenges we face as a society require leadership. Once we identify a problem, we act. We embrace risk and act to protect and restore the stability, integrity and beauty of the web of life. 

4. Not bound by convention: Our success—and much of the fun—lies in developing new ways to do things.

In reading this and in learning about the various philosophies that underpin all areas of business;design, production, distribution, marketing, finance, HR, management, and environment, it is clear that there is always more that can be done in striving toward your goals. There is a lot of press and lip service given to the rise of “social enterprises” - we have been called one and even at times self-identify as one. This is an imperfect moniker but is an attempt to say “we are not like other companies/ businesses, we operate from a place of belief, of values, and with purpose.”

Rust Belt Riders has been around for almost six years now, we have a clear mission statement to “Feed People, Not  Landfills” and also have core values that guide us; Systems Thinking, Learning, Integrity, Empathy & Joy, Equity, and Regeneration. While these uncertain times have many of us reflecting on the things that are truly important, our work is no different. I have been thinking a great deal about how we can do more, about how we can dig deeper.  How can our work continue to grow bonds, food, and a future that helps to heal people and the earth? There is no question that the coming weeks and months will be among the most trying in our company’s history but how we use these weeks and months to plan for the years and decades to come will hopefully put us on a path to join Patagonia and others in helping to “save the home planet”. I hope you will join us on this journey.

Daniel Brown, Co-Founder of Rust Belt Riders, outside of Yyon Chouinard’s tin shed, where Patagonia was born. (2015)