Dear Katie, Elan, Tom, et al, I would be happy to gather regarding setting up a meeting on this most important topic of food preservation.
I think Katie's idea of doing a general presentation on the importance of food preservation with a short demonstration is an excellent idea. I would be happy to prepare a short presentation on the subject matter, but think it would probably be best to find someone (else or also) who has extensive experience in this arena to present. My vision is a large, well-designed Community Kitchen and Cannery facility located in a central area of Ithaca (perhaps somewhat close to the community gardens) that would be publicly accessible and which would also be responsible for preserving a large amount of food purchased exclusively from local growers for an emergency food bank that could be used for peak oil preparedness. Contracts could be signed with local farmers in advance of the growing season such that it would guarantee local growers a solid market for their produce. This has the potential of vastly increasing demand for local and sustainably grown produce. The Emergency Food Storage could be cycled through by selling the 2-3 year old food to the public at competitive prices in order to help pay for the project or incorporated into local food bank programs. The facility could/should incorporate solar hot water, methane digester, and other RE technologies where applicable and a dehydration system that captures and uses the waste heat. Cornell's and Ithaca College's departments of architecture, engineering, business, and city and regional planning could be brought into the project as well as the Ag Extension agency, Greenstar, Taitem Engineering, Renovus, Performance Systems Contracting, Snug Planet, local food banks, non-profits, etc. in order to define and develop a solid social, structural, and business plan for the facility. A fairly decent discussion of the factors that need be considered regarding setting up a Community Cannery can be found here: http://www.healthguidance.org/entry/7280/1/Resurgence-of-Community-Canneries.html I'm really excited about this concept. Though this will obviously require a significant investment of resources, energy, labor, and organizing, designing and building such a facility will undoubtedly be worth it considering the current world food crisis that will invariably cause much suffering right here in Tompkins County if we remain apathetic to the clear and undeniable information that is coming to us, especially in regards to peak oil and the utter unsustainability of centralized industrial agriculture. In five years time, everyone will admit that such ambitious projects were certainly worth the cost. The question is whether we act now when we have the best resources to do so... Ryan D. Hottle -- Ryan Darrell Hottle, Climate Change Solutions Thinker Performance Systems Contracting, Building Performance Analyst Global Climate Solutions www.GlobalClimateSolutions.org <http://www.globalclimatesolutions.org/> (coming soon!) Ohio Peak Oil Action (OPOA) Co-Founder, Director www.ohiopeakoilaction.org 803 Coddington Road, Ithaca, New York 14850 (740) 258 8450 _______________________________________________ For more information about sustainability in the Tompkins County area, please visit: http://www.sustainabletompkins.org/ RSS, archives, subscription & listserv information for: [email protected] http://lists.mutualaid.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainabletompkins free hosting by http://www.mutualaid.org
