Spring is here, and beautiful things are growing everywhere.  Not only our backyard gardens are in bloom with all manner of fruits and vegetables, but a strong local movement toward Community Agriculture is taking seed.  Let me explain:

Everywhere we turn, people are talking about energy prices, about political instability among oil-producing nations, about the economic rise of China and India, and the demand for global energy resources by their emerging markets.  Energy costs are depleting faster and costing more, a LOT more, in shorter periods of time.  So what do we do?  A very compelling answer is the steady development of local sources of energy and food, for starters.  The work is just getting started:

Under a conference series called the “Peak Oil Conference” in Carbondale, we have begun to address the larger issues of making this valley sustainable against the coming age of high fuel prices.  The Peak Oil Conference has begun to address the issues of local Energy, Food, Shelter, and Water systems, so we may enjoy the fruits of our own labors, when it is too expensive to import the products that sustain us.  It is held on the first Thursday of every month, 7 – 9 pm, at the Community School in Carbondale.

            Jerome Osentowski, head of CRMPI, Central Rocky Mountain Permaculture Institute on Basalt Mountain, has spent most of his life developing permanent, sustainable greenhouse technology for high mountain applications and can teach us how to grow plenty of food year-around, right in our own backyards;

            Jerome’s and my Heritage Fruit Tree Project has identified and organized adoption of three orchards in Emma, and is underway with several others.  We have seven families actively engaged in caretaking century-old apple, pear, apricot, plum and cherry trees, we have grafted new trees from many of these proven producers that were planted by the original settlers, and we’ve been selling them at very competitive prices.   If you don’t want to have fruit trees in your yard or neighborhood, you can adopt an old one on a ranch, and enjoy the gratification of a large harvest of fruit, after a satisfying year of pruning;

            Fat City Farm, a local group of gardeners www.fatcityfarm.com, is organizing two ranchland leases in Emma and a Greenhouse installation in El Jebel, toward the planting of crops in 2007.  Before we begin preparing soil, erecting deer fencing, building drip irrigation systems and collecting seed for some real crops to be raised next year, we have a few challenges to address.  We also have an offer to use two hoop-houses, or small greenhouse structures, for the winter of 2006-2007.  These are also dependent on the same few challenges as the land leases.

            Almost everyone who hears about the idea of developing local agriculture is very excited about it, and expresses a great willingness to help.  It appears that the best way for us to proceed is to organize ourselves into community non-profits, and to begin growing food on conservation easements on local ranches.  We are currently negotiating on two such sites in Emma, and there are many more possible in Woody Creek, Old Snowmass, the Frying Pan Valley, Carbondale and the Crystal River Valley, as well as Missouri Heights, Glenwood Springs and beyond.  The challenges are in the organization.

Landowners need legally binding waivers, complete with insurance to protect them, by protecting people who might be injured on their land while working in a volunteer or a paid role.  This is essential in our culture, and can most easily be accomplished by a non-profit buying insurance and signing a document releasing the landowner from any liability.  That’s step one.

Step two is the construction of deer fencing around a food-growing plot, establishment of irrigation systems, and the preparation of soil.  We intend to learn about growing food over a long period of time, and learning requires some level of trial and error, and occasional failure.  That’s no reason not to try, so let’s get started.  We will try to keep the deer, rabbits and ground squirrels out of our veggies, and we will learn how to grow them organically.  This is not a throwback to the past, but the application of knowledge from our history, to a very productive future.

We are establishing a non-profit organization called “Fat City Farm” in Basalt, and we are offering charter memberships.  Annual dues will be $50. per adult member of household, and $25. per child member of household, effective for the year 2006.  With this funding, we will create the non-profit and start getting two plots of land ready for production next year.  We will offer members free classes in gardening, fruit tree caretaking and harvesting, food preservation and cooking of various kinds.  We will host a banquet each Autumn, sometimes with members of other community agriculture movements, and we will witness the annual growth of some very satisfying and community-building enterprises.

These are wonderful opportunities for your family, your church or your civic group to participate and learn about where your food comes from, and how to engage in making it a very healthy system, in every way.

If you are part of the Carbondale community, similar opportunities can be found with Sustainable Settings, and you can find information about them at www.sustainablesettings.org, although everyone is also welcome to join Fat City Farm.

In the Glenwood community, you can join a well-established Community-Supported-Agriculture cooperative, at www.peachvalleycsa.com

If you wish to be part of the Aspen-Basalt-ElJebel “Fat City Farm” CSA, please help by joining as a charter member, or by contributing to our fundraising effort, and by volunteering to help build the organization.  It will be what we make it.  Please see our website www.fatcityfarm.com for the vision, opportunities and committees, and please come join us in the Gardens.
 

 

If you wish to join or contribute, please mail checks made out to

Fat City Farm
P.O. Box 933
Basalt, CO

 

 

 

 

 

We will keep you appraised of developments through our website, and in our monthly newsletter.  Please be patient when you see that your check has not been cashed for awhile.  We will cash them all at once when we establish the non-profit organization and bank account, and we will issue a brief monthly report on expenditures.

Unless we notify everyone differently, we will host our first annual local food banquet on Saturday, November 4, 2006.  Stay tuned for details.

Welcome to Fat City!

Michael Thompson