Ronnie Cummins, founder and director of the Organic Consumers Association, will be giving a free public lecture entitled “Climate Catastrophe: How Organic Agriculture and Green Technology Can Help Us Survive the 21st Century” on Wednesday, March 10, 7:30pm at the Fairfield Public Library.

The Organic Consumers Association (OCA) is a non-profit, U.S. based network of 850,000 consumers, dedicated to safeguarding organic standards and promoting a healthy, just, and sustainable system of agriculture and commerce. The OCA’s primary strategy is to work on national and global campaigns promoting health, justice, and sustainability that integrate public education, marketplace pressure, media work, litigation, and grassroots lobbying.

In his article The Organic Revolution: How We Can Stop Global Warming Cummins writes, “Beyond the gloom and doom of the climate crisis, there lies a powerful and regenerative grassroots solution: organic food, farming, and ranching.”

“Millions of organic farmers, ranchers, conservationists, and backyard gardeners (supported by millions of organic consumers) are demonstrating that we can build a healthy alternative to industrial agriculture and Food Inc. Our growing organic movement is proving that we can not only feed the world with healthy food, but also reverse global warming, by capturing and sequestering billions of tons of climate-destabilizing greenhouse gases in the soil, through plant photosynthesis, composting, cover crops, rotational grazing, wetlands preservation, and reforestation.”

Cummins is the editor of OCA’s website, organicconsumers.org, Organic Bytes newsletters, and Organic View. He also serves on the steering committee of OCA’s Mexico affiliate, Via Organica.

Cummins has been active as a writer and activist since the 1960s, with extensive experience in human rights, anti-war, anti-nuclear, labor, consumer, environmental, and sustainable agriculture campaigns. Over the past decades he has served as director of US and international efforts such as the Pure Food Campaign and the Global Days of Action Against GMOs. From 1992-98 Cummins served as a campaign director for the Foundation on Economic Trends in Washington, D.C. In 1998, Cummins organized the SOS (Save Organic Standards) Campaign, spearheading the largest consumer grassroots backlash against the US Department of Agriculture in recent history. He is also a frequent lecturer, both in the US and abroad.

Cummins’ visit to Fairfield is sponsored by Sustainability Research Institute, the not-for-profit research arm of The Sky Factory, LC.

Here is another great opportunity for local gardeners new and experienced to learn more about growing their own food!  As part of his internship in the Iowa Master Gardener program, MUM Sustainable Living professor Alex Kachan is offering a series of workshops on various aspects of small-scale, organic gardening to the entire community for free.  The only requirement is that you register at least one week in advance because each workshop is limited to 15 participants.  If Alex gets more than 15 requests for a workshop he will schedule a repeat for the overflow members.

I had the great pleasure of both attending one of Alex’s lectures on Vermicomposting (using composting worms to biologically break down organic matter) and working with him at the Ecovillage CSA two summers ago.  He is incredibly knowledgeable and passionate about growing food sustainably from every step in the cycle, so I am sure these workshops will be not only informative but inspiring.

Here is a brief listing of workshop times and topics.  Email Alex at the address below for complete descriptions and to reserve a spot in the ones that interest you.

Sunday, March 14th, 2010: Starting Seeds
Workshop length: 1:00– 4:00 PM (3 hours)
Location: SL Dept., room 111 & SL greenhouse

Sunday, April 18th, 2010: Making your bed – the art of Double Digging!
Workshop length: 1:00– 4:00 PM (3 hours)
Location: MUM Community Garden

Sunday, May 30th, 2010: Compost – learning to grow soil!
Workshop length: 1:00– 4:00 PM (3 hours)
Location: MUM Community Garden

Sunday, June 13th 2010: Compost Tea – pampering your soil & vegetables!
Workshop length: 1:00– 4:00 PM (3 hours)
Location: SL Dept. room 111

Sunday, June 20th, 2010: Garden Q&A’s
Workshop length: 2:00– 4:00 PM (2 hours)
Location: MUM Community Garden

Sunday, July 11th, 2010: Seed Saving
Workshop length: 1:00– 4:00 PM (3 hours)
Location: SL Dept. room 111

August 15th, 2010: Vermicomposting
Workshop length: 1:00– 4:00 PM (3 hours)
Location: SL Dept. room 111

Workshops will be filled on a first come, first served basis.  To register, choose the workshops you wish to take and send their titles, dates & your name to Alex at: akachan @ mum.edu

Click here to download a flyer providing more details on the workshops.

In this age of going green, reducing energy use, recycling and reducing waste, do you wonder if you are doing enough? Pekin, Iowa resident, Dawn Bechtel, who was born, raised and is employed in Fairfield, wanted to do something more so she created a Fairfield Freecyle/Buycycle Facebook Page in September 2009 with the main goal of keeping as many items out of the landfills as possible. Today they have over 500 members listing items they are willing to give away for free (freecycle), items they are wanting to sell (buycycle) or items they are in need of and would like to find used instead of going out and paying for new (recycle).

The Page’s creator, Dawn Bechtel, describes her motivations and intent:

Ever since the day I read Danny Seo’s book Heaven on Earth – 15 minute miracles to change the world, I’ve wanted to implement them all and more. Our environment takes such good care of us and it is important that we show our appreciation and take even better care of our environment.

We don’t have trash or recycling pick up where we live so recycling is a must! Garage sales are a lot of work and not well attended in this area and we have some nice things that we no longer need and don’t want to just toss them in the trash! We’d like to see them find good homes. I’d heard several of my friends from other states talking about FREECYCLE and although I did a few Google searches I was unable to find one in our area. Frustrated, I decided to start one on FACEBOOK and see what happened.

It is my hope that every item posted will soon find a new home. That everyone living in and around Fairfield that has a FACEBOOK account will want to be an active member and those that don’t have a FACEBOOK account will be asking their friends that do, to list or find items for them.

Members have found new homes for toner cartridges, TV’s, microwaves, swing sets and more. Got some exercise equipment collecting dust in the corner? Several members of Fairfield Freecycle/Buycycle are interested.

In addition to posting items, the Fairfield Freecycle/Buycycle also promotes fundraising and recycling efforts currently going on in the community and other resources for recycling like The Bargain Box, My Lucky Day, Agapeland’s Closet and Chickadees. The Fairfield High school (FBLA) is asking for donations to recycle used consumer electronics, ink cartridges, and any unwanted, tangled or broken Metal Jewelry – you can find a complete list of items they are accepting on the site. Members can also find a complete list of the items that can be recycled at Waste management as well as any fees that might be associated with certain items

You know the old saying, “one person’s trash is another person’s treasure”, and that is definitely the case at the Fairfield Freecyle/Buycycle Facebook Page. Check it out and help keep as much out of the landfills as possible.

On Thursday, February 11th the Center on Sustainable Communities will bring their entire team to visit Fairfield to scout out the city as a potential site for their summer programming.

The Center on Sustainable Communities had a connection with Fairfield from its inception. Lynnae Hentzen, their Executive Director, moved to Iowa in 2004 and wanted to perform a green upgrade on her “new old home”. She had a difficult time finding anyone who knew what she was talking about – until she came to Fairfield and linked up with Joel Hirschberg at Green Building Supply. She was amazed at the wealth of resources in a town that she considers to be the “greenest spot in Iowa”.

She was a stay at home mom for two years, and began thinking about how she could help create a satellite of green buildings in Des Moines and Iowa. She partnered with Beth Hicks and founded COSC, whose annual budget is now over one million dollars and holds award-winning workshops across the state. The mission of COSC is to “serve as a resource to encourage, promote and educate about sustainable building practices among professionals and homeowners.” They are currently running a free 10-session series in West Union for contractors, subcontractors, planners, architects, appraisers, city officials and other professionals to develop a “comprehensive understanding of green building best practices” – and also to support disaster recovery efforts in Northeast Iowa.

Recently, when the City of Fairfield was awarded an Office of Energy Independence grant to upgrade and retrofit their public buildings – Scott Timm, Sustainability Coordinator for Fairfield, began communicating with Lynnae to see if the City could utilize COSC programming to run educational workshops around those projects or other private projects planned for this summer. Now that it looks very likely that the City will forge this partnership with COSC, we would like to invite businesses and community members who have an interest in COSC to attend the monthly Greendrinks meeting this coming Thursday the 11th at 12pm, upstairs in Revelations.

Lynnae remarked, “We’re just excited to see what role we can play to support the initiatives that are going on down there.” This is a fantastic opportunity to create professional development opportunities for a wide range of Fairfield residents, and we look forward to growing our partnership with COSC!

In the summer of 1974, Fairfield was forever changed. A long line of yellow buses pulled into town from California, carrying scores of college students. Maharishi International University—now Maharishi University of Management (MUM)—had outgrown its Santa Barbara facility, purchased the former campus of Parson’s college, and relocated here to Iowa.

MUM has never been a conventional university, but in a 1970s small-town Midwest setting its differences were even more pronounced. Back then, a college where all students & faculty did Transcendental Meditation (TM) seemed downright radical.

Today, meditation and yoga have gone mainstream, and MUM has broad appeal among progressive-minded students of all ages from around the world. Enrollment has steadily climbed for the last 4 years, and new programs like Sustainable Living are flourishing. MUM has moved beyond its reputation as simply “Meditation U” and yet… people in Fairfield hear very little about what’s actually happening on campus, whether they meditate or not.

Hence, this new column called “On Campus.” As a graduate of MUM, I’m obviously biased—I had a great college experience, made friends from different countries, and believe in the value of the unique knowledge available here. But don’t worry, this isn’t a sales pitch or public relations ploy. As a lifelong Fairfield resident, my desire is simply to share the cool stuff going on at MUM with our community. Things have changed so much in recent years—even since I graduated in 2003—that it’s tough to keep up if you’re not around campus day-to-day.

Feel free to comment or ask questions on things you’d like to hear about. I’ll do my best to answer in a straightforward way, without hype or spin. Coming up in my next installment: MUM’s commitment to organic, vegetarian dining—a college cafeteria that non-students choose to eat at!

[Note: this article was originally posted in July 2009.  It is now updated with the complete recipe - include at the end of the article - for making the Artisan Free-Form Loaf.]

My bread habits have come a long way in the past forty years. I started with Wonder Bread. In the 80s I moved on to a Whole Wheat bread which was basically the brown version of Wonder Bread from a nutritional standpoint. In the 90s I discovered real Whole Wheat breads (thanks to local co-op grocery stores) and explored the tastes of fresh baked artisan breads. And now, thanks to my wife, my family is learning that sliced bread isn’t the greatest invention after all. Instead, our family is now baking all of our bread ourselves, and what may surprise most people is that it’s relatively easy to bake enough healthy, great tasting bread to feed your family.

Over the past several months we’ve been buying fewer and fewer loaves of sliced bread, and baking more and more bread at home. Two weeks ago we decided to stop buying bread at all, and switch entirely to baking our own bread. So far it’s going well and I don’t miss store bought sliced loaves. Our routine is to prepare a high moisture no knead dough once a week, store that dough in the fridge, and use portions of it to bake bread (or pizzas) as needed throughout the week.

Baking all of your own bread may sound like a lot of work, and while it is more work than putting a loaf of bread in your cart at the grocery store, it isn’t as labor intensive as you might imagine (as I thought until recently).  Of course we were helped greatly by a book that was featured on The Splendid Table titled Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day.  The book provides detailed instructions and techniques on how to bake an Artisan Free-Form Loaf.  It’s what they call their “master recipe”, which once mastered contains all the skills required to bake the dozens of other recipes in the book.

Read the full story

Briggs Shore and Frank Cicela take us on a tour of the campus of the Sustainable Living Coalition in Fairfield, Iowa.

Briggs Shore and Frank Cicela take us on a tour of the campus of the Sustainable Living Coalition in Fairfield, Iowa.