SILT Launches Circle Our Cities Be a part of it in just 5 easy steps! Pick a time and date for a 1-hour Zoom gathering. (In person, post-Covid, if you like!) Invite your friends, neighbors and colleagues to join you. Confirm their attendance before your launch party. Make introductions at the start of the party - Networking and sharing is part of the fun! OPTIONAL: Ask your guests to bring or show off their favorite drink, pet, child, outdoor setting, gadget or local food. (Wait, did we say "child"???) GET STARTED - Call or Text  515.710.6416 [...]

DONATE TODAY The campaign's mission is to ground local food systems in permanent local farms. It's goal is to surround 10 Iowa cities with 10 permanent table food farms in 10 years. SILT leaders are in a 3-year, $3 million campaign to fund this 10-year effort. The organization estimates it will be able to Reach 100 landowners willing and able to donate land or conservation easements surrounding 10 cities to Protect 4,000 acres valued at $60 million and Help 400 beginning farmers get or stay on the land that will Sequester 10,000 tons/year of carbon and Feed 800,000 Iowans. [...]

Des Moines metro farm couple are asking the community to join them in a modern-day barn raising Donnelle Eller Des Moines Register It's not unusual for Jordan Clasen to have four dozen boxes of winter squash, onions and other produce stored in his home's front entry during the year's coldest months. Otherwise, the veggies would freeze in an uninsulated garage that's among the buildings he and his wife, Whitney, use to wash, pack and store the fruit, vegetables and eggs they sell through their farm, Grade A Gardens in Johnston. The couple aren't complaining. "We've gotten by for this long, but it [...]

Paul Johnson died yesterday. He was a giant of conservation. His deep voice and the twinkle in his eye conveyed his intellect and his passion for conservation whenever he spoke. His generosity of spirit filled the log home he had built with his wife Pat. You were among the fortunate if you could sit in their modest living room, with Pat serving nuts and lemonade, as Paul waxed eloquent on the latest reading he had done or the opinion piece he was working on for the newspapers. As national Chief of the Natural Resources Conservation Service under Bill Clinton, [...]

Peri-urban farmland is under constant pressure from urbanisation. And it is disappearing at worrying rates. What would it take to protect it? And what can we learn from countries that have tried to do so? In a review article published in Land, researchers from the French National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment look more closely at success and failure factors for farmland protection policies in developed countries. Article from Urban Food Futures

SILT supporters are working hard to save local food. So, for fun, I asked a couple of committed Iowa foodies what kind of food trends can we expect to see in 2021? Chef Matt Steigerwald, Head Chef at the farm-to-table restaurant Rapid Creek Cidery at Wilson’s Orchard, just outside of Iowa City Greener food delivery.  Covid made everyone think about delivery a lot more and conversations about containers and methods that are more sustainable is constant. More of that. Too many small restaurant takeovers. I remember when Katrina hit New Orleans many of those small businesses were bought up [...]

As COVID-19 shut down most of our economy in 2020 and packinghouse workers were forced to choose between their livelihoods and their lives, the fragility of our current food system became evident to most Americans. This new report The Power of Community-Based Food Systems by the Wallace Center spells out case studies in resilient food systems from around the county, including the Midwest. It includes lessons learned as well - such as "Change moves at the speed of trust." It also focuses on issues such as "decentering whiteness." If you believe in a just, accessible, affordable food system, support [...]